German Patent Application No. DE 10 2009 026 995 A1 describes a method for operating a bus system, in particular a CAN bus. Multiple stations may be connected to the bus system. A transmitted message has an identifier, a particular identifier (for example, IDENT2) being allowed to be used only by a single station. Each of the stations compares the identifier of a transmitted message with the identifiers used by the station itself (for example, IDENT2). In the case of a match, an error message is generated.